


Cemetery Tales

by bellatemple



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-10-31
Updated: 2005-10-31
Packaged: 2017-10-26 22:54:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/288788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bellatemple/pseuds/bellatemple
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The gang is on retreat in New England.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cemetery Tales

_"So come, friends, strangers, lovers, neighbors. . . . Come out of your warm house and into the cool night. Smell the wet leaves crushed to mush . . . a stale mix of dust and coriander in the wind. It's the best time of year up here, the only season you want from us, our pastoral past--witch hunts and woodsmoke, the quaintly named dead in mossy churchyards. Never mind that it's all gone . . . this is still a new England, garden-green, veined with black rivers and massacres."_   
**\-- The Night Country by Stewart O'Nan**

 **  
The Melancholy Dead   
**

Buffy is comforted by the cemetery. Since the collapse of Sunnydale, they've become the only constant in her life. No matter where she goes in the world, she always finds herself walking between tomb stones and crypts, statues of angels and gods, a stake clutched in one hand.

Of all the bad things that have happened in her life, surprisingly few have ever happened in cemeteries.

Beside her, Willow shivers. New England is chilly in October. She says so.

Willow shakes her head. "Can't you feel it?"

"Feel what?"

"I hate cemeteries," she says. "The dead here, they're so . . . sad."

  
  
**  
Night Walker   
**

Monsters don't like Halloween.

That's Dawn's mantra as she gazes into the black trees around her. She's alone on the path.

A crinkling of leaves to her right makes her freeze. The sound doesn't repeat, so she starts walking again.

There's no breeze tonight. No clouds to cover the moon. She hears her footsteps and sees her breath. She knows Giles and the slayers are waiting. They've each taken this solo walk through the woods.

It's a leadership exercise. Finding your bravery.

Dawn knows there's a very fine line between great bravery and great stupidity.

Monsters don't like Halloween.

 _crunch_

  
  
**  
Nightmares   
**

Giles can't help but be relieved when he sees Dawn emerge from the path. The girls are quiet in the wake of their night walk.

He's read all the books. He knows the benefits of testing your limits in a safe atmosphere. He knows that no date on the calender is safer than tonight. He knows that this retreat is exactly what they all need, some time to relax and learn about themselves. Learn to trust each other.

He pictures Faith-as-Buffy and Willow with black hair.

He also knows why trust is the hardest thing in the world to do.

  
  
**  
Watchers   
**

The campfire crackled, the sound mingling with the voices of the ten young slayers under Faith's charge. She stands to one side of them, keeping an eye on the girls crouched around the fire. They're telling ghost stories and roasting marshmallows.

She keeps her other eye on the woods around them.

She catches sight of something glinting just beyond the firelight. Two spots flash, then disappear into the darkness. She narrows her eyes and catches the flashes again.

Eyes.

They're all around them, not moving. They're watching.

As long as that's all they're doing, Faith is content to watch back.

  
  
**  
Don't Look Back   
**

"Movies are the creepiest." Andrew taps his heels on the tombstone.

Xander rolls his eye. "No. They're not."

There's a crunch somewhere behind them, footsteps on dried leaves. Could be Buffy and Willow. Could be something else.

Xander remembers a story he heard once, maybe in Africa, maybe earlier. A fiend in the night, that can only catch you if you look back at it.

Another crunch, this time closer. Andrew is expounding the wonders of John Carpenter. Xander shifts and listens to the cemetery. He can feel something approaching by the way his shoulders tense.

He doesn't look back.


End file.
